Peterborough, South Australia

Monday, October 18, 2010
Lovely sunny, warmer morning & the roads are all open in Wilpena Pound ..... but time for us to move on to Peterborough, our next overnight stop on this long trek home!
Peterborough has a long railway history & we spent a couple of hours doing a guided tour of the 'Steamtown Heritage Rail Centre'. They have one of only two working turntables in the Southern hemisphere & a big roundhouse once used for servicing steam & diesel locomotives. It is one of the only places where you can see all three rail gauges together. All very interesting but wind cold & we were outside, besides there is only so long you can listen to train stories!! There is no railway industry in the town today. Luckily the Roundhouse, Turntable & other buildings has been preserved as a museum.

Peterborough, SA: Steamtown Heritage  Rail Centre - Ladies Lounge Car; Steam Locomotives;
Turntable pit with Roundhouse at rear;
One should always keep detonators with the First Aid Equipment!?; The turntable showing the 3 rail gauges

Had a look around the town & found the 'Federation Quilt' on display in the Town Hall. 'The Peterborough Patchworker's Federation Wall hanging took in excess of 1,700 hours to complete & was constructed during 2001 to commemorate 100 yrs of Federation. It was launched on December 1, 2001 & is housed in the Federation Foyer of the Town Hall in a cabinet built specifically by the Peterborough Cabinet Makers.' You can see picture of the quilt at www.peterboroughsa.com.au/quilt.php  I didn't like to take photos even though I saw no signs saying not to do so.
Rest of the afternoon was fairly routine. Had to cook or eat all veggies & fruit before crossing the state border tomorrow. Peterborough was really quite a nice town & they are making an effort to encourage tourists to stay longer than 1 night. We could have spent another day here as there were quite a lot of things to do & see.